


Love in the Time of Red Rust

by privatepenne



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: F/F, Human AU, anyways its the Pharma whining story, blood/medicine/DJD ment, near future sci fi?, oh yeah also theyre all lesbians au, updates VERY sporadically
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-10-18
Packaged: 2019-06-08 02:00:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15232899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/privatepenne/pseuds/privatepenne
Summary: Dr. Pharma runs Delphi. Eventually she falls. But before that there's a long period of descent.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This hasn't really been edited, and I'll only get to post when i have the time between school and work to write. just wanted to be the bitter lesbian robotpeople change I wanted to see in the world

The potholes on the road on the way to Delphi were unbe-fucking-lievable. The manhole covers were an inch above the gravel and every time Pharma’s prius hit one she squared her shoulders and imagined the tires shredding to the rim. One time last week she’d been stuck behind a station wagon dragging itself down 12th with both of its front tires already completely blown out, lurching into one of the many nameless repair shops on the main Messatine thoroughfare. It wasn’t even five miles out of the center of Iacon and – the parks department or - whoever it was couldn’t be bothered to pave the roads properly. Pharma’d only lived up here for a month and she was already sick of her ten minute commute to the clinic.

She clenched her teeth again as she barely swerved to avoid another pothole, crossing halfway into the opposite lane as the light turned green. Cue honks and curses. Pharma looked ahead diligently. $250 dollars for a tire change.

Delphi Immediate Care was on the edge of Messatine's city limits, tacked to the end of a mostly empty strip mall across from the cemetery that marked the boundary between the greater Iacon area and the country beyond. A grey midcentury storefront, streaked with black runoff from the overflowing gutters, teetering on the margin of desolate slum and a garden of death. Each morning Pharma would spend a few minutes sitting in her car in the Delphi parking lot, Iacon Classical Radio playing, head in her hands against the steering wheel, peering out across 18th street to the cement columns of the graveyard fence. The music would fade into the periphery and she’d find herself thinking about what things had been like Before. Back south in the city, five miles down the train line. A vein that pumped life from this desolate corner of the world to a better past, where the hospitals were well staffed and the streets were clean and paved. Sometimes she thought about her and Ratchet.

Medicine isn’t about winning, Pharma, Ratchet said. Admonishing but also approvingly, because Ratchet always went as hard as she did and it exhilarated her at first to have someone to measure her energies against.

You know who says things like that? Newly minted Internal Medicine Fellow Pharma had asked, snapping her gloves. People who don’t win.

Where’d that Pharma gone, she wondered now. Hadn’t been more than a few years since she and Dr. Ratchet had stalked the halls of Deltaraan together, working miracles? The Internal Medicine Fellow Pharma had been irrepressible and idealistic and stared death in the face with eager determination. The Pharma of today stared out across the cemetery, the yellowed grass and the tombstones like broken teeth. The Pharma today had to face another day as the only physician in one of the only clinics in the Messatine neighborhood, providing primary care to the disadvantaged people that lived there (mostly occupational injuries from the electric plant a block away) and doing anything necessary to keep within the meager non-inflation-indexed stipend from Medicaid. 

Pharma had liked the idea of being the clinical manager when Prowl offered it to her, the paperwork and the authority were familiar. The petty, demeaning begging she’d been reduced to, however, was. Nobody had money to give to Delphi and Pharma didn’t have the power to take it. The Pharma of today looked death in the face when she wrote a prescription for drugs that she knew her patient couldn’t afford, or signed out another package of sharps and naloxone to the Messatine PD, and she looked away.

The waiting room was already open and filling up when she walked in from the cold. First Aid was at the nurse’s station at work on the antique desktop computer, her surgical mask already on. Pharma tried not to make eye contact with any of the patients she passed on the way to the front desk, buttoning up her lab coat.

“You do realize that if you keep unlocking the doors before 8 people are going to keep coming in before 8,” she asked, standing stiffly in front of the CNA. First Aid peered up at her, equal parts chastised and firm.

“Yeah, sorry, I know, it’s just – like, it’s 30 degrees out there and I always feel really bad seeing people line up outside. They’re just trying to be on time? It’s better than coming late and screwing up your schedule.”

Pharma pursed her lips. “With the amount of charting I need to do for these people my schedule’s getting screwed up either way. We might as well avoid turning our waiting room into a street corner. I mean, is that a dog? Really, Aid? Are you even looking at the door?”

“Oh, my god, I didn’t notice!”

“Jesus Christ, Aid. Okay, get the dog out, get into scrubs, let’s get to work.” Pharma reached over the desk divider and grabbed the clipboard with the day’s patient schedule on it, already ready to take an aspirin. First Aid was always too busy reading… well, whatever kind of weird porn she was into on her phone to be a very useful addition to Delphi. At least Pharma could rely on Ambulon, the RN who was already in the exam room finishing up the workup for her first patient as Pharma came in.

Pharma nodded at Ambulon and motioned for the nurse to go. That was the most Ambulon ever got as a morning greeting, but unlike Aid the ex-Con understood the power dynamic between the two. And she did fast workups.

“Good morning, Ms.. Kaon, I’m Dr. Pharma,” she said, pulling up the rolling desk chair so she could sit down across from the examination bed. Her patient was sitting delicately on the edge, legs crossed under the hospital gown and hands neatly in her lap, eyes invisible behind thick, dark glasses. “What brings you here today?”

“Well, Dr. Pharma – and nice to meet you – I’ve got a problem with headaches that have gotten a lot worse recently, and I’m worried that it’s a problem with my eyes.”

“Recently? How long have you had these episodic headaches?” Pharma had turned back to the computer and was skimming through Ambulon’s initial workup. 

“Since the accident, I suppose. Electrical accident when I was in my twenties, but I’ve had the eye issue since I was much younger.”

“Scale of 1 to 10.”

“What?”

“Pain. Scale of 1 to 10. And localization, intensity, duration – oh, and any associated symptoms, including but not limited to nausea, vomiting, visual or auditory hallucinations, local or general paraesthesia or loss of feeling?” Pharma had turned her attention completely to the computer monitor at this point, typing furiously as she listed off possible comorbodities. With the amount of patients crammed into her schedule she couldn’t afford to waste time picking apart every new patient’s medical history, much less listen to a sob story about an OSHA violation. She already had a list of likely issues and she just had to cross out the unlikely ones.

“7 at its’ worse, it lasts several hours and it starts right here-“ Kaon tapped her forehead “and gets more intense over the course of an hour.”

“Concurrent symptoms?”

"What?"

"Con-uh, symptoms that go along with it. Do you throw up? Get nauseous?"

The patient leaned back. Pharma didn’t like that she couldn’t see her eyes; Ambulon noted that she had severe retinal scarring in her chart so she probably couldn’t see very well anyways, but still. She didn’t like not knowing things.

“I feel a little sick afterwards, but I’ve always been able to keep food-“

Kaon was interrupted by a frantic tapping on the exam room door. 

“What is it?” Pharma called out, not bothering to turn away from the computer. 

“Hey, Pharma, sorry to interrupt-“ First Aid was interrupted by barking from the waiting room as she peeked in. “Uh, there’s a person in the waiting room who doesn’t speak English and I think they want to see the doctor?”

Pharma turned to stare at her, then slowly turned back to her patient. More barking.

“I’m sorry, let me step out for just a second,” she said, smiling big and fake.

Yes, never a dull moment in Delphi.

 

\-----------------------------------

 

Kaon watched the doctor leave, slowly swinging her feet, waiting until the door closed. She waited for a second, looking around the room and squinting until the white blobs in her vision formed into furniture pieces. Once she was sure the doctor was gone she stood up and minimized the medical chart open on the computer, pressing her face as close to the monitor as she could in order to read the tabs. She’d palmed her zip drive when she’d changed into her hospital gown and she patted the side of the computer until she found the slot to plug it in.

Yeah, she wasn’t the best fit for this job, but she’d been with the DJD for the longest time and she knew what she was looking for. She did this last time Delphi got a new physician too; besides, she’d been to an actual doctor for actual health problems more often than anyone besides maybe Tarn.

She clicked through the applications on the desktop until she found what she was looking for. The directory of on-hand schedule II and III narcotics was password locked, but once she loaded it onto the drive and took it home Tesaurus could have it decrypted within the hour. And once they knew what Dr. – was it Farmer? was packing, they’d decide if she was valuable enough to keep around. A quick drag and drop, the employee key code that she’d gotten from the previous head doctor, and she ejected and unplugged the little USB drive just as the doctor came back into the room.

“Those aren’t for you too look at,” she said sharply when she saw Kaon at the computer. 

“Oh, sorry. I was curious,” Kaon smiled, curling her fist around the zip drive. She’d just had time to pull her medical chart back up. It was empty, of course; she’d made sure to have it purged. “Did everything work out out there?”

“Just a service animal problem. God, people can get anything licensed as a therapy animal. Unbelievable.” The doctor – Pharma, that’s right – popped her knuckles and sat down at the desk. “Anyways, I’m giving you a referral to get an MRI at Deltaraan General downtown. It’s the closest facility with a radiology department and I want to make sure that it’s nothing neural.”

“Really, you don’t even want to do an eye test?”

“If something’s wrong with your eyes, your vision can’t really get worse than it already is. Schedule a radiologist appointment, take aspirin, lots of fluids, no reading on computers or tablets and call 911 if you start vomiting uncontrollably or experience loss of consciousness. Ah, here we go-“ she reached under the desk and pulled out a few sheets of paper that she’d run off of the printer and handed them to Kaon. “Just follow these directions.”

Internally, Kaon was broiling with anger. This doctor was rude, supercilious, controlling, worse than the last one all around. And oh, she’d have so much fun taking her apart, god, when Tarn let her get her tools on her the rest of the team wouldn’t have anything left to work with afterwards. Those nice long fingers, pretty white teeth, even face, that was all prime real estate. Kaon knew how to use an electric probe so thin it barely left a mark in the skin going in when it cooked you from the inside.

She’d leave the face intact for Vos when the time came.

On the outside she smiled dumbly, thanking the doctor profusely, docile as she folded up the discharge orders and gathered her clothes. Pharma pulled off her sterile gloves and left without saying goodbye, on to the next patient.

Maybe if she’d been a little more polite Kaon’dve cut her some slack later.

Probably not.

She got dressed and put her dark glasses back on, throwing her paper robe in the hamper on the way out of the exam room. Nobody bothered looking up from their work when she left through the waiting room.

Vos was standing across the street smoking a cigarette, the Pet nosing in the street gutter.

“Get out of there,” Kaon said affectionately, nudging his nose away with her shoe. He whined. “What, was Vos mean to you? Were they being a big meanie? Were you being a bad doggy in the doctor’s office?” She cooed, leaning down to rub the huge mutt’s chops. Vos, completely obscured by their high collared black coat and beanie, snorted.

“You did perfectly, Vos. A full two minutes alone. Let’s get out of here, I got what we need.” She said, standing up. It was too cold to loiter next to the cemetery gates. The PT was parked on the next block; even though a white unmarked van was pretty anonymous, she didn’t want to risk the ex-decepticon nurse recognizing their vehicle pulling into the Delphi parking lot.

Vos flicked their cigarette to the sidewalk and ground it down. “і лекар?” they asked, jerking their head towards the clinic as they started walking away. Kaon still didn’t understand what they were saying but she got the gist of it.

“Oh, don’t worry. I get the feeling that the new doctor’s going to be a good investment. And I can’t wait for Tarn to meet her.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ms Edgelord finally shows up so I finally get to put the ~~~tarnma~~~ tag on this

Iacon got its first snowfall in October, most of it melting away when it got above freezing but some of it sticking around in clumps in the gutters. Pharma was lucky enough not to have to shovel in front of her apartment. Her ridiculous rent apparently covered her deadbeat downstairs neighbor’s occasional snowblower trip, so the walk from the street to the front door of the building was dry, at least.

She lived on the third floor, a nice compromise between the safety of the top floor and the ease of the bottom. The place was a piece of shit but it was close to Delphi and it was next to the elevated train – when she was looking at places here she thought she’d be going back into downtown Iacon more than she actually did, but she’d started to find the rattle and screech of the trains outside her window vaguely comforting. It reminded her of living in LA when she was a kid. She’d lie awake in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling, and listen to the steady heartbeat of trains coming in and out to the Messatine train platform.

The snowfall marked the third month that Pharma’d been working at Delphi. After moving out into the ghetto alone she’d turned around and reassembled the emergency care center down to the smallest minutae, overseeing the digitalization of its medical records, a reintegration of patient scheduling, a new shift rotation system and, of course, a few cosmetic changes to make it look more like a proper practice. Not that the hundred year old building could ever come close to the towering glass edifice of Deltaraan medical facility, but at least Pharma could have the bathroom tiles re-set and get some new medical equipment put in. The rest of the staff might not like it, but the rest of the staff didn’t know anything better.

But the real gift that Pharma brought with her to the outer reaches was her surgical skill.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to close that up?” First Aid asked, peering around Pharma’s shoulder into the examination room where one of the factory workers sat, pressing a handful of bloody paper towels to a long cut in his arm. “It’s just a few sutures.”

“Unless you’ve been taking night classes and gotten registered as an actual nurse, yes, I’m sure,” Pharma responded as she prepped a 10 ml with local anesthetic. Then, feeling a little bad, she added “but you can watch if you want to.”

It was almost 8 pm and it was the last procedure of the evening. Ambulon was in the front preparing for tomorrow and the mobile cleaner was humming around the floor in the waiting room. 

First Aid pulled up her face mask and nodded. Pharma handed her the plastic bottle of iodine solution and a bag of cotton swabs. “Here, hold these. It should just be a few stitches, but we should be prepared if there’s muscular involvement.”

The patient didn’t look up when Pharma and First Aid came into the exam room, preparing for the procedure in companionable silence. Pharma liked a quiet medical bay; it meant that everyone knew their place.

“Alright, let’s have a look at that arm,” she said, pulling up a stool and a sterilized table. The factory worker held out his forearm and winced as Pharma gingerly lifted off the layers bloody paper towels. “Can you still move your fingers?”

“Yeah. Just real bloody.”

“Can you wiggle them for me?”

She watched the flesh around the laceration move, tracking each tendon and muscle in the back of the forearm as they moved. The cut was deep and long but the blood that oozed out was thick and dark and the internal mechanics were all moving like they should. All signs of a clean cut. 

“Did you get your ID chip swiped when you signed in?” She asked, still focused on the procedure. Most industrial wounds she’d seen were on the inside of the arm, but this one was on the volar aspect at the base of the hand where the subdural ID chip was implanted.

“Didn’t have it checked,” he responded, teeth gritted. “Too much blood, didn’t bother.”

Pharma sighed and gave him a few perfunctory sticks with anaesthetic. “First Aid, grab a scanner and make sure you still get a reading.”

“Do you have to?” The patient asked. “It’s not a big deal if it doesn’t work. Our foreman doesn’t care if we got one or not…”

Pharma irrigated the wound with the sickly yellow iodine solution and picked up her pincers. “I don’t care either, but we’re legally obligated to make sure all mandated implants walk out of here working.”

First Aid reached around her with a handheld scanner and Pharma leaned back so she could pass the read laser reader over the faint bump on the worker’s wrist that hid the tiny ID chip. The reader beeped after a few passes.

“Yeah, it’s reading,” First Aid said, squinting at the screen.

Pharma was already suturing. Microtechnology wasn’t her best field and she was glad she wouldn’t have to replace a chip tonight; they’d be there until 10 pm if they did. She liked working with real flesh better than tiny, sterile little motherboards.

“Good. Get in here and sponge up some of the – ugh – thank you, it’s getting slippery-“ Pharma twisted the last suture with practiced efficiency, locking the filament in place as First Aid gently sponged the rest of the wound. “There, 6 midline standards with protein ligands.”

“That’s really good,” First Aid said from over Pharma’s shoulder as she finished up. “Beautiful stitches, really.”

Pharma beamed behind her mask.

“That’s Johns Hopkins and Deltaraan,” she responded. 

“Did you clamp the inside too?”

“Outside and inside with one stitch. It’s a standard technique we used for interabdominal ligatures, but you can use it for external stitches too. It’s not as long lasting but it’s much more secure, especially if he’s going to be working again soon.”

“Not too soon,” the patient grumbled, flexing his hand gingerly. Pharma snorted.

“You’ll be fine in a day or so. We’ll get you some antibiotics and fixatives and you should be cleared for light labor right away. What kind of doctors would we be if we promised anything less?” 

“You sure?”

“Don’t worry about it.” She swabbed his yellow iodine-stained arm. “You’re all done. We’ll get you bandaged and print out a doctor’s note for tomorrow. No heavy lifting until the stitches dissolve.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“And come back if your chip malfunctions.”

“Yeah.” 

Pharma rolled her stool back and let First Aid apply the bandage while she placed the used needle in the sharps bin. He didn’t seem too enthusiastic about getting back to work, but that was Messatine dayworkers for you. 

“Is Ambulon gone?”

“Yeah, she clocked out already.”

Pharma stripped off her gloves and disposable robe and dropped it in the waste bin. “You can leave too, once you’re done discharging him. I’ll clean up and finish prep back here.”

“Are you sure? I don’t mind staying over,” First Aid asked as she finished taping the pad of gauze over the wound.

“Here’s some advice from a real physician, First Aid. When your attending tells you to take a night off, don’t question it,” Pharma responded dryly. The exam room would need to be cleaned and sterilized, which wasn’t really her job but she wouldn’t trust First Aid to do it because she’d spend half her paid overtime on the internet instead of properly sterilizing Pharma’s custom German steel surgical set.

First Aid looked like she was about to say something, but thought better of it. Smart girl, Pharma thought. The redheaded CNA led the patient out of the room, chatting at him about wound care, gesticulating with her bloodied gloves still on.

Pharma yawned and grabbed a handful of balled-up bloody towels and dumped them into the trash with the rest of the gauze and sterile pads. Her heart was still racing with the residual adrenaline kick from surgery. God, she loved cutting people open! She took her time cleaning up, saving her tools for last. Good tools were hard to get now since most of the rare metals that went into laser scalpels and microcauterizers were saved for computers, but Pharma had gotten this expensive set as a gift from her medical school when she graduated as valedictorian. 14 pieces with detachable analog blades, 7 different forcep grades, a probe no larger than her pointer finger, it was a luxurious set, better than even Ratchet’s. She removed the galvanized steel scalpel blade from its handle as she washed it in the sink, turning it over and scrubbing it lovingly.

It took her half an hour to clean the exam room and another fifteen minutes to disassemble, clean and reassemble her tools, and if First Aid wasn’t gone by then, then Pharma needed to start refusing to pay her overtime.

A quick check to the front waiting area – yes, they were all gone!

Time to get to work.

Pharma shut off the lights in the front, casting the entire office in a ghostly red glow from the power strips on the walls. Pharma jiggled the front doorknob to make sure that it was locked. She plugged her phone into the front computer to charge before ducking into the narrow pharmaceutical storage room behind the front desk, inputting the two separate key codes and scanning her iris. 

The heavy refrigerated storage unit in the back of the closet required her full strength to open, and she propped up the heavy door on her back as she leaned in and shoved the tissue samples and microwave meals aside to pull out the glass box she’d put there when she first got to Messatine.

She scraped the frost off the lid with her fingernail as she picked it up, thrilling to see what it had inside. “Hello, darling,” she whispered as she stood, eyes smarting from the cold.

“Hello, Dr. Pharma.”

Pharma screamed. The refrigerator door slammed and the box dropped and shattered against the bare concrete floor. “FUCK!” Started to drop to her knees, suddenly remembered what was going on, sprang up almost on top of the short refrigerator. 

“What the – the HELL are you doing here? You can’t be back here!” She spat, hands scrambling against the shelf walls for anything she could use as a weapon.  
The figure that had appeared between her and the doorway didn’t respond. The only light in the bathtub-sized room was the red floating in from outside and Pharma couldn’t pick out any physical characteristics besides /big/.

“I didn’t mean to startle you, Doctor. Was it a long day? You seem tenser than usual.”

Pharma grabbed an ancient can of Raid and popped off the cap, brandishing it threateningly. “The clinic’s closed. If you want a consultation you’ll have to call ahead and make an appointment during daytime hours.”

The intruder laughed, rich and slow. A woman. And with her in the doorway, no way for Pharma to pull the silent alarm under First Aid’s desk.

“Consider this my scheduling appointment, then.” The stranger responded, reaching for the can. Pharma pressed down the nozzle frantically but nothing came out except a sad metallic rattle and she scrambled back against the shelf behind her as the stranger plucked it gently out of her hand.

“What do you want?” Pharma snapped, forcing a panicked sob back down into her chest. Her eyes had adjusted to the closet a little and she could make out swathes of features on the silhouette; a big, dark coat, some kind of pointed headdress, something above her shoulders that looked suspiciously like the barrel of a gun. “You think that you can come in here and just – just fucking menace someone like this? I am a medical professional and I refuse to be threatened. If you don’t leave I’m going to call the police and have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

The stranger looked at her for a moment, then slowly held out the Raid and let it drop to the floor with a dull clatter.

She gently placed her hands on either side of Pharma’s knees and leaned over the refrigerator. Leaned in. 

“Ma’am, I’m – I’m going to ask you to s- to s-“ that was definitely a gun. On her back, that was a big, BIG gun. That was definitely also a mask and this was definitely a holdup and Pharma was definitely, certainly going to die in a few seconds, and the stranger’s face was just a few inches from her face as she loomed over her, so much bigger than her and impossibly threatening.

“I’m going to tell you this…once, doctor.” A hand, a leather glove, actually, gently cupped Pharma’s cheek. “You can call the police if you like. If it gives you the illusion of comfort, than I encourage it.” The hand moved to rest on her neck. “I like my partners to be comfortable. I find that it makes them work better, feeling like they have someone protecting them. No, not protection, that’s a cheap insurance of safety. They work better when they know that the only person who can really do them harm has decided not to.”

“Who are you?” Pharma asked, slowly and deliberately.

The hand retreated but the figure still loomed over her. “My associates call me Tarn.”

Silence.

“You’re familiar with the name, I presume.”

“Heard it before. Gang enforcer. Hard drugs. Torture.”

“You ought to have said ‘torture’ first. That’s the pertinent part.” She replied.

Pharma suddenly grabbed blindly behind her and knocked a dustbin off its hook, reaching for anything solid, but Tarn slammer her hand back against the wall. “Stop. Now.” 

“Get off of me and I might!”

“Let me tell you how things are going to go from here, you obstreperous little clean-handed fool. This is our neighborhood, and the fact that you – your clinic, your nurse, who’s been on our list for years – are still here is a direct testament to my generosity. The moment you stop being useful to us we’re going to burn it to the ground and gut you in front of it.”

“Fuck you.”

Pharma caught a flicker in Tarn’s hand and that was the only thing she saw before a knife was pressed to her neck. Trapped, pressed up against her, close enough to see the flicker of light behind the eyeholes of the mask and hear the rasp of her attacker’s breath, pinned -

“Later, doctor. Don’t interrupt.” 

The knife gently cupping her carotid artery was incentive enough to obey. 

“The price for your safety is this; every week we expect a part of your apportion of scheduled substances. Fentora, lysersis, osalis and B-oxone to start out with. We’ll amend the terms as necessary.”

“I can’t.”

“Oh, but you will, doctor.”

“No, I mean I can’t. We keep track of all of those in – in nanoliters! Even the slightest discrepancy and the DEA’ll be at our door in hours! They’ll-” take away my license. Jail time. Absolutely worse than death in a storage closet.

Tarn hummed in amusement. “The doctor before you certainly found a way.” The knife moved to her chin. “Until he didn’t.”

“I won’t.”

“What, do you doubt your own intelligence? That doesn’t seem like you.” Tarn asked mockingly. “You sound like you care too much for saving your own skin to refuse our offer.”

“There’s something else,” Pharma said, head spinning from short breaths. God, please don’t make her do this. She couldn’t take from the clinic’s stock, but… “-That you’re standing on.”

Tarn’s eyes flashed down, then up again, quickly. Pharma held her breath and kept her chin down as Tarn slowly stood up. She slowly lowered her hands as Tarn reached down, knife out, to delicately pick up one of the frosted glass bottles that Pharma had dropped.

“What is this.”

Pharma took a breath. “4,6-Tetracoxylic acid. It’s an experimental drug I was working on before I came here. It was chemomechanically designed to selectively increase the ion ch-“ she stopped and looked up at the mask looming over her. “Forget it, it’ll go over your head. We found out that when you attack it with a strong base and inject it immediately you can get really, really high.”

Tarn descended on her with startling speed given her size, slamming Pharma down to the fridge with a hand on her neck and a knife behind. The doctor shrieked.  
“I don’t believe you, Pharma.”

“It says so on the box!” Pharma hissed. “T-cox! That’s what we call it, t-cox! I’m supposed to be using it on the factory workers to help chemically induced nerve damage! It’s a clinical trial!”

“A clinical trial you’ll happily trade away while your opioids languish in a lockbox?”

“It’s strictly under the table,” Pharma gasped, swatting the hand pressing hard on her neck. “I’m not supposed to have it, but the Deltaraan IRB refused to let us test it…”  
“Because the moment someone found out they could use it as a drug, it’d be banned,” Tarn continued thoughtfully, ignoring Pharma’s efforts to shift her weight off of her sternum. “So they gave it to you to test on an ignorant, compliant population.”

“It’ll help millions when we get it approved.”

“And if it has any side affects, it’ll just be the Messatine workers who suffer for it.”

“They won’t suffer. I designed it, and it works. And I promise it works as a drug. Better than anything you can find on the street, and less dangerous, too.”

Tarn cocked her head, watching Pharma panting for breath.

“How much do you have?”

“Enough. And I can get more. Or make more. Just need a lab.”

Tarn uncoiled and stood up, regarding the bottle she’d had in her gloved hand. Pharma gasped, clutching her neck. Tarn hadn’t been pressing hard enough to do real damage, but she could still feel the cut of the leather seams against her skin.

“I suppose I’ll give it a trial run. After all, if you’re lying to me and something... untoward happens, my team will delight in stripping the skin from your body and delivering it to your medical facility. I could barely keep them from coming after you when you treated my second-in-command so rudely.”

“I don’t remember-“

“Of course you don’t, because you didn’t care. I’m sure you never do.” Tarn tossed the bottle up and tucked it in her coat pocket. “I’ll take this back with me, doctor. Hopefully you’re better at cooking up chemicals than you are at keeping your positions. If it’s any good we’ll be in contact with you regarding further negotiations.”  
She didn’t need to reiterate what would happen if it wasn’t.

Pharma watched Tarn move leisurely to the doorway and pocket her knife. The DJD leader seemed pleased, radiating easy confidence in the dim red light. Stayed tensed up on top of the refrigerator, not daring to move, barely breathing as she heard glass crunching under Tarn’s boots.

“I look forward to seeing you again, Doctor Pharma,” Tarn remarked. “I love adding pieces to my collection.”

And she was gone, humming pleasantly, back through whichever door she’d snuck in through.

Pharma stayed where she was, skin prickling, mind thick and foggy. Her neck and the back of her head hurt. After a few minutes she allowed herself to slip off the fridge and sink to the floor, crouching in a circle of broken glass and tiny plastic test tubes, fists clenched. In the front room the automatic cleaner beeped and hummed, the only other sound in the clinic.

Outside it started to snow.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me on my way to work this morning: writin fucky tarn on the train on the train, writin fucky tarn on the train
> 
>  
> 
> Anyways let me know how you like it, i'm a bitch that lives for feedback. Who do you want to see show up? too much backstory or not enough? This is my first sequential fic so bear w me

Their base wasn’t that far away from the clinic, especially now past rush hour. The potholes on the way there were brutal, though.

It had started snowing while Tarn was paying a call to the Doctor, and she enjoyed a slow drive home watching snowflakes slide down her windshield. Erykah Badu rolled out of her speakers, the baseline rumbling the driver’s seat and steering wheel. Messatine was quiet, at least from the outside. It was too cold to do business at the corner lamppost or by the abandoned playground on 1st street. The DJD's black car passed them silently.

Tarn twisted her dark braid in her fingers thoughtfully as she analyzed her meeting with the Doctor. She and Kaon would have to read up on T-cox before she tried it. To be honest with herself, she didn't know why she'd accepted it. She should have told the Doctor to forget it and hand over the usual drugs that they'd been ferrying to the Decepticon's trading operation (and sampling, too.) But somehow, in that moment in the closet, Tarn had been more intrigued than suspicious by her offer. Somehow, despite her intentions, she had walked out of the clinic without what she had come for.

She felt the itch pressing through her and a hand darted up to her face, running over the skin of her cheeks looking for purchase through the leather gloves. Her fingertips brushed over old scars and new, raw valleys of drying ragged edges and tugged experimentally, considering which would hurt the least to pull off. She would wait until she was home and she could see if the T-cox could quiet the urge for a little while; standard anxiolytics had lost their edge long ago. All Tarn had left was a few bottles from the old clinic at home and those wouldn't last very long if the hunt kept going poorly.

She changed the song and gripped the steering wheel with both hands now, promising to put the mask back on if the itch got too strong again.

Doctor Pharma was just as pretty as her picture on the website, and just as sharp as she’d heard she would be. Could she trust her, though? 

Tarn thought of the sick fear on her face, barely visible in shades of black and red in the very back of the pharmacy closet. She could barely make out the Doctor's face but she could hear her quick ragged breaths and feel the hot press of her skin underneath her thin silk blouse, her heart hammering against her neck. She’d had such a pretty neck. Enough to make Tarn wish she hadn’t worn gloves. She had wanted to run her fingers over it and dig in and tear.

Fear was a good motivator, but it would only work for so long.

The base looked dark and deserted when she pulled into the driveway. The benefit of light-blocking curtains, installed by some prior, very flighty Helex.

"I'm back," she announced as she pulled off her boots in the front room of the DJD's home, knocking the slush from the heels against the front door. 

"Kitchen," Helex roared from the other end of the house over the clash of dishes. Tarn could smell food. "You want leftovers?"

"Leave me a plate if you would," Tarn called back as she took off her rifle harness, coat and kevlar and propped them up in the closet. She kept her mask and gloves on just in case, putting them back on after stripping down to her black tank top and jeans. Cause's sake, she'd gotten sweaty under all that clothing.

She heard the back door opening and the Pet scrambled into the parlor, wet and barking.

"Down, boy! Down! For goodness sake, you little miscreant!" She grabbed the huge mutt's front paws to keep him from jumping up on her, yipping excitedly. "Yes, you! I already took you on a W-A-L-K today so you have no excuse for being rude." She ruffled the Pet's dripping muzzle and held him upright by the paws until he calmed down. Once she let him go he loped over to Kaon, who was leaning against the doorway to the living room, smiling.

"At least someone comes to say hi to you," she joked.

Tarn cracked her knuckles. "I know, I ought to consider myself lucky. Not everyone gets covered in slush after a long night at work."

"Long night? What happened?"

"Oh, no, I didn't mean it like that. It went fine, with the Doctor. We came to an agreement."

"Ah?"

"She was reluctant to share her clinical resources with us, but she said that she had something better." she pulled the T-cox out of her pocket. "It has the chemical label on it, why don't you look it up and let me see what you find? She made some rather lofty promises about it, but then again, she did have a knife at her neck."

Kaon smiled broadly and took the vial. "If she's lying, do you promise to let me have first dibs?" 

Tarn chuckled. "You really don't like her, do you?"

"Well, you've met her, you tell me."

"I think she's fun. She has the potential to be fun."

"Basement fun?"

"If she's not telling the truth about what's in that bottle, then yes, basement fun."

The Pet yipped and Kaon swirled the clear liquid in the tube appraisingly. Kaon was the second most senior member of the DJD; when Megatron had given Tarn leave to recruit a team of dedicated Decepticons to exact justice on the Cause's nonbelievers, her old friend had been her first choice. Kaon was Tarn's opposite in almost every way, small, wiry, with dark cool skin and close cropped curly hair. Tarn was ambitious but insecure, Kaon was a confident pessimist. Tarn loved the idea of justice but left darling pragmatic Kaon to take care of the execution.

They made a good team.

"What was that about the basement?" Helex asked as she came out of the kitchen hallway, wiping her wet hands on her pants. "Hey, boss."

"Good evening, Helex. Kaon and I were discussing Delphi's new doctor; I just came back from the clinic. We had a constructive conversation."

"Eh, any better than the last? Bastard never got us our stuff on time."

"We'll see."

Helex shrugged. The oldest member of the DJD had kept her day job when she'd joined; the hours at the chemical degredation center were flexible, and her access to all manner of disposal sites made her very useful for cleaning up after missions. In any case, she cared more about the thrill of the hunt than the little political maneuvers that Tarn oversaw as the leader of the DJD. "Hope so. I'm going upstairs, Tes left food out. I think she's working in the basement tonight. Night."

Tarn nodded, watching her taller colleague disappear up the stairs of the old turn-of-the-century mansion that they'd claimed as their base. Messatine had been a prosperous neighborhood once; it reached its peak a century ago and had never come close to it again. The base was one of the last standing reminders of that golden age.

Kaon sighed. "They're impatient, you know." 

Tarn 'hmm'ed as she reached down and unloaded her rifle.

"It's been nearly two weeks since we finished up with Kingpin, and we still don't have any leads on..."

Tarn raised a hand to cut Kaon off. The Pet yipped, thinking she had a treat for him.

"Ah, ah. I know. But we have to go in order, Kaon, you all know the rules. Overlord can't hide forever, it's not in her nature. She'll show up in some boxing ring sometime soon. She needs attention, it's her greatest flaw and our greatest asset."

Kaon scratched the ruff of the Pet's neck. "I know, Tarn. It's just - been, what, a year since we've made any progress finding her? and in the meantime we're letting the people who are actually causing problems get away. You know we want to get her as much as you, but for Helex and Tesarus and Vos' sake I think it'd be smart to pursue other projects for now."

Tarn rested her gun by the closet door, eyes narrowing under her mask. Kaon was being diplomatic, but still, she was the only member of the DJD that Tarn would let question her leadership. And even at that, Kaon should know better than to bring the prodigal Phare Sixer up unless she was telling Tarn her exact location so they could hunt her down.

"We're still hunting, Kaon. After all, we took care of Kingpin, didn't we? That presumptuous little coward? Wasn't that a good hunt?"

Kaon picked up on the growing edge to her friend's voice and changed tack. She was the only member of the DJD who understood how the Phase Six program, and the decepticons who grew up in it, had effected Tarn. She'd grown up with the pale, quiet girl and watched her turn into an urban legend. She'd seen the bruises. She shrugged again and pushed herself off of the door jamb. 

"Yeah, we did. It felt good, another name on the list. It was a good idea to go up to Milwaukee after all. But I just wanted to let you know, just in case, that Tesaurus and I found a little more information about the Worldsweeper bust while you were out, and that seems pretty promising. I found some suspicious credit activity from the Iacon PD and I followed up on it."

"Didn't I tell you not to pursue that lead?"

"You told me I didn't have to, not that I couldn't. I had time on my hands and got curious, that's all. High command lost a lot of money and men with that bust and they still haven't even given us a name to put on the list. It seems like a waste of a good hunt, that's all."

"Kaon!"

She raised her hands in supplication. "I just don't want this to end up like another Starscream, alright? I'm sorry."

"It won't." Tarn pointed at the T-cox. "See to that first. And don't look into the Worldsweeper affair until I tell you to. Keep tracking Overlord. That's your first priority, no matter how impatient you are to go killing someone."

"Fine." Kaon nodded, frowning behind her dark glasses. "Go get some food though," she added.

"I'll get to it," Tarn responded, already on her way upstairs. She heard the click of the Pet's claws and Kaon's disgruntled mutterings on their way to the kitchen.

Her rooms were in the very back of the third floor, chosen so that she had a good view of Messatine and Iacon in the distance. She'd decorated it haphazardly with artifacts from Decepticon history, building the custom shelves for the Cause's seminal works herself. Tarn's ideal guest had never graced it with her presence, but it made Tarn feel closer to her, living and sleeping in her Lady's presence. It was even decorated in purple and grey and vintage dark wood, painstakingly designed for the highest degree of taste and approval. If her Lady requested the key to Tarn's chambers she'd surely appreciate the effort, Tarn knew.

She undid the leather straps of her mask and hung it on the peg on the back of her door with the others - it never hurt to have spares - and took off her gloves to pick up the stack of papers that Kaon had put on her bed. Cause's sake, Kaon! she sighed. Disobeying direct orders! That was going in her quarterly evaluation.

Still, might as well look over it.

Kaon had printed sheets of financial statements and printed code, with the essential parts underlined and annotated in red. Tarn turned on the lights and flipped through them as she wandered into her adjoining office, humming. Yes, there were a few questionable cable transfers over a few months; it wouldn't have attracted attention, but nobody knew how to dig and worry and fuss like Kaon did. The off white paper and Kaon's red slashes across it. Surely Megatron would have notified her if she needed Tarn's help in settling the Worlsweeper matter. She had to know that Tarn would throw herself to the ground to beg to have a chance to be useful to her. She thought of a warm neck...

Uncovering who betrayed the Decepticons this time could wait for a night, she decided, slowly running her hand down her neck and to her chest, rubbing her collarbone. She had an obligation to herself tonight, a date with a bottle of pills and her stereo and her sumptuous antique bed.

She smiled and left the file on her bedside table, picking up the orange prescription bottle next to it as she lay down. Yes, she supposed she could let Kaon and Tesaurus look into the Worldsweeper affair. She popped the cap off and lazily fished out a pill. It wouldn't be a problem after all; Tarn could find Overlord herself, and she could present her Lady with a Phase Sixer AND the Worldsweeper traitor. She let the little yellow pill dissolve under her tongue, then suddenly remembered to turn on the speaker connected to her ipod. Megatron's second canto, read in her own voice, took up abruptly in the middle of the second line where she had paused it before.

The itch got quieter, quieter than the bitter taste in her mouth and quieter than her Lady's rough, dark voice. As the ceiling started hazing she ran her hands up her arms and across her chest, making believe they were someone else's hands doing the touching. Tarn closed her eyes, let her mind drift, and her hands wander.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pharma, your research methods are bad and you should feel bad. The Deltaraan IRB would never approve this

The cohort for the t-cox trial consisted of 20 participants with moderate chemically induced paraesthesia and muscle spasms. Hypothetically they were randomized, but Pharma picked the patients that she knew would make good subjects. Messatine was perfectly located in that respect; the chemical plant provided a pool of potential participants, workers who hadn't been taught to safely handle the heavy metal compounds they helped make. After First Aid compulsively checked their auto-bot ID chip on their first clinic visit Pharma would note their trembling silver stained fingertips and covertly present them with the consent form for a new, low-risk clinical treatment. They had yet to refuse.

She sent Prowl and Caduceus encrypted updates every two weeks, her recruitment documents and clinical notes. Never got a response, but she knew that that was par the course. Officer Prowl wouldn't risk incriminating herself by leaving a record of her involvement with the t-cox trial.

That was why her call caught Pharma so off guard.

"We've had some unexpected complications," Pharma prevaricated. "Some of the samples were destroyed during transportation - no thanks to whomever arranged the delivery - and we've had to double the initial dosage to see any clinically relevant results."

"And you didn’t put those in your notes because...?" Prowl asked, her voice tinny on the other end of the line.

Pharma took a deep breath. "I put the new dosage in the Excel doc. Second page? I'd expected that at this point in the process I'dve had a chance to meet with you and explain the course of the research in person."

"Not clean work. Caduceus doesn't have time to synthesize much more of this, and I need to have solid results by January if we're going to present it to High Command this fall."

"Things would go a little faster if I had more administrative support," Pharma replied shortly. "At the moment I'm PI, head investigator, IRB and, oh yes, full time emergency clinician. If I had another physician helping me with my workload I could devote more time to the t-cox trial."

"Are you implying that you aren't able to handle a single suburban clinic? Ratchet assured me that you were the best that we had. Besides herself, of course."

Pharma gritted her teeth, leaning against the refrigerator box in the supply closet, hand on her hip.

"Are you sure you're handling things over there? You can always transfer back to Deltaraan if you aren't up to the task. We'll find somebody else for Messatine. I understand the head physician before you had difficulty in your position, too."

Ah, yes. The DJD had made sure there was no trace of Pharma's predecessor that could be put into a police file, so she had remained a Missing Person, probable runaway. After all, all of her important paperwork was gone from her apartment; as far as Prowl was concerned, the doctor had simply had too much of Messatine and abandoned it in the middle of the night.

But Pharma was made of stronger stuff than that. She wouldn't get caught by the DJD, and she wasn't going to flee. And no, she wouldn't go back to Deltaraan with her tail between her legs, god, anything but that. She might honestly prefer the torture. No physical pain could outdo the indignity of having to work with...

"Prowl, seriously. Just get me an internist for the clinic. If you can’t manage that, then two more liters of t-cox for this month. I'm more than capable of managing my own research project, thanks."

"I hope so. We'll be in contact about the volume of the next shipment."

"Sure."

She expected Prowl to hang up. The police chief had a reputation for being curt, and she was especially so with Pharma. Probably didn't like circumventing the law in the short run in order to protect the city long-term. A weak stomach, Pharma thought. Prowl wouldn't last long in the ED, watching metal-poisoned workers seize and froth as their bodies forgot how to operate.

Keeping contact with Pharma to a minimum insulated her from a potential investigation, but it also kept the messy moral bits out of sight. But now Prowl stayed on the line, an uncharacteristic moment of hesitation on her part.

"How are you doing over there, Pharma?"

Pharma grimaced and made a quizzical gesture to herself. "I'm sorry?"

"Besides hating it there, evidently, are /you/ doing alright? Your coworkers, patients..."

"Fine, Prowl, fine."

"Alright. You know you can call me if there's any trouble."

"Sure."

"It can get lonely in a place like that, believe me, I know."

"So I have a call to make, Prowl. I'll email you next week and let you know what's going on, okay?"

"Alright."

"Alright. 2 liters."

"We'll see."

Pharma hung up.

"The hell was that," she grumbled and deleted the call from her history.

It was past 10 pm and the clinic had been closed for a few hours while Pharma stayed late to 'do paperwork' (which was a valid excuse, thanks, after Ambulon accidentally deleted the day's patient intake logs.) She'd double booked her evening meetings, too; a call to Prowl, who was being...Prowl-ey about the sudden disappearance of t-cox, and then a meeting with the instigator of the said disappearance. She hadn't expected the call to go on as long as it had, but Prowl seemed to be projecting her discomfort with the study onto Pharma and she couldn't risk coming off as suspicious.

"Alright, I'm coming," she muttered as she scooped up the two 20 mL tubes of t-cox that she'd prepared. Through a combination of forging dosages and diluting what she did administer, she'd scraped up enough for this week. When did I start talking to myself? she wondered. Who wants to hear about The Secret Life of the American Pill Mill?

She struggled into her down coat and boots and locked up as she left. The cold was bracing and it felt like a punch to the chest when she stepped outside, hurrying around to the front of the clinic, slushing across the dark street and into the cemetery.

The DJD had some weird business policies, including not meeting anywhere where they could be recorded. But wasn't the purpose of hired terrorism to terrorize people? Pharma had yet to see any physical proof of their so-called hunts, just heard snatches of rumors. She'd made the weekly t-cox delivery twice and somehow never had a chance to ask about Decepticon public image management.

She picked her way over the dark, snowy grounds. There were no lights in the cemetery, just weak distant streetlamps lining the street in front of it. When she passed the walls that separated street from cemetery, she felt- well, she never believed in ghosts or spirits, but she definitely believed in murderers - she felt like she was stepping into the land of the dead. 공동묘지, her mother would have called it. It was no comfort that she already knew the most dangerous thing in the park, and she had a standing appointment with them.

An appointment to which she was 10 minutes late.

Oh, Kaon was not going to be happy.

Off the main path, underneath a desiccated tree, by a collection of hidden granite tomb markers that Pharma always tripped over and made Kaon snort. She didn't know why they had to meet halfway into the cemetery instead of by the entrance, but at least Kaon had to make a miserable walk from the street, too.

Oh, that wasn't Kaon waiting for her under the tree.

She almost forgot to internalize her running narrative, fuck, fuck, fuck, Tarn. Tarn.

Tarn stood calmly by their meeting spot, hands folded behind her back, looking impassive in the cold. The distant streetlights lent her a familiar silhouetted appearance. Pharma stopped several yards ahead of her and planted herself there, not willing to come within arm's reach. She hadn't seen the Decepticon since the first night and the memory still sent a shock of raw panic through her. They stood like that for a few shivering breaths until Tarn held out her hand.

"Pharma. You're late."

"I know, I'm sorry. I was calling the head of the study to explain why I need more t-cox. We've really been burning through it. It's all sorted out, of course," she added. Tarn didn't respond, and kept her hand out.

Pharma dug in her coat pocket and pulled out the red biohazard bag with the vials in it and held it out.

Tarn cocked her head. Chuckled. "Come now, Pharma. Come here and give it to me.”

"I'd really rather stay over here," Pharma responded stiffly. She hadn't worn gloves and her fingers were starting to sting. "Let me throw it over there."

“Pharma. Circumspect as always. That won’t do, Pharma. We’re partners now. Don’t you want to keep being partners?”

It’s better than the alternative, she thought bitterly. “What are you doing here? Did you have a free shift? Did someone die faster than you expected?”

“I know you were expecting to meet with Kaon. I’m sorry to disappoint you, of course, her services were needed elsewhere. And it wouldn’t do for you to meet the rest of my team without giving you a proper introduction. I think they’d take altogether too much pleasure in meeting you if I wasn’t there to hold them back.”

Pharma took a deep and icy breath. “I don’t mean to sound unthankful, Tarn, but can we get this over with? I have a clinic to close.”

“Your voice is wavering, Pharma. You’re scared. That’s good. I’m always glad to see that our work has been successful. Especially if it keeps you from doing silly things like showing up to your appointments late.” Tarn took a step towards her, snow crunching underfoot. “Pharma, Pharma. What am I going to do with you? Pharma?”

Tarn’s voice turned rich and flinty and Pharma felt her throat grow tight with panic and she took a step backwards, matching Tarn striding towards her, dark and unreadable. “Pharma.” She turned to run.  
Her heel caught on a gravestone. The world flipped. She hit the ground with enough force to slam her teeth together and knock the air out of her lungs. The bag with the two vials of t-cox went flying into the snow somewhere as she tried to brace herself backwards, but she didn’t care. For a second she forgot how to breathe, couldn’t see, but then realized that what she thought was blindness was just her view of the muddy brown sky. She must have cried out but now there was suddenly something clenched around her throat like a vice.

“I never understood people like you. You lash out like a cornered animal when you’re in danger, but you only ever harm to yourself,” Tarn whispered, mask pressed against the side of Pharma’s face. The snow she was lying on was cold. So was the metal mask. “Why do you do this, Pharma? Why do you make yourself suffer when we try to help you?”

She wheezed, hands scrabbling at Tarn’s fearfully strong arm.

“You, who have never known real suffering, play at bravery. It’s admirable, but it’s as false as sin, Pharma, and it’ll never turn out well for you. You’ll always end up here, where you belong. Beneath your betters.” The stars in her eyes from her fall had disappeared but the clenched grip on her neck had not. She slammed her hands at Tarn’s shoulders but the Decepticon didn’t seem to notice, like Pharma was nothing more than a vague annoyance.

“Your Autobot masters might tolerate your petty power plays, but I don’t think I have the patience. I’m very busy, Pharma. I expect my partner to appreciate that. You’re welcome to cry on our own time-“ Pharma gasped raggedly as Tarn shifted her weight “-I find it endearing – but not when we’re at work. Do you understand, doctor?” She let her grip lessen and Pharma wheezed frantically, clasping her own hands around her neck to keep it safe from Tarn. The taller woman leaned back on her heels – she was kneeling over Pharma in the snow.

“Please,” Pharma gasped out. It was the only thing that came to her mind.

“Please what?”

“I’ll be better next time, I swear to god. Please let me go.”

Tarn cocked her head owlishly and slowly reached towards Pharma’s face. She flinched and turned away, only to be rewarded with a featherlight brush of leather glove to the side of her face. She could feel her heart pounding in her neck.

“You sound so lovely when you beg, Pharma, it’s really a shame for you. It makes me want to hear it again and again.”

“I got you your drugs, Tarn. I did what you asked me to do. Now please, please just let me go.”

“You really do like to hurt yourself, don’t you?” Tarn said, her voice suddenly affectionate. “I’ll hurt you for you. Why don’t you get me three of those little bottles of t-cox next time we meet, Pharma. I think that would be fine.”

Pharma bit the inside of her cheek, still blinded by the darkness and the snow in her eyes. She could barely justify what she was currently delivering, how was she supposed to get half again that much without Prowl getting suspicious?

God, was Tarn blowing through all of that stuff herself? Pharma’d assumed that she was sharing it with Kaon and the rest of the DJD or distributing it to the rest of the bottom-feeding ‘cons in Messatine. How was Tarn still standing with that much stimulant in her system? Now that the thought occurred to her Pharma dared looked up at the silhouette crouched over her. Was she exhibiting tremors or sweating? Erythema or pruritis at common injection sites? If she could see Tarn’s face, would she see the reddened eyes and nystagmus that she’d noticed accompanied prolonged t-cox usage?

“No argument? It seems like we have a deal then, doctor,” Tarn said, leaning down until her messy black braid brushed Pharma’s face. She seemed disappointed that she’d deprived her of the pleasure of any more begging or fighting. “I hope that next time you’re a little more punctual. If not, I’ll be a little less merciful.” She leaned down even further, holding Pharma’s face up, and pressed the middle of her mask – right where the jaw-plate met the rest of it – against Pharma’s unwilling mouth. The metal was frigid and the raw corners pressed against her skin and she could feel warm, wet breaths from the mouth slit. The gloved hand at her face held her there as she tried to turn away, bare hands curled against her chest to protect them.

Tarn sat up again, sufficiently satisfied that Pharma’d been bent into submission. “We’ve been very good to you and your clinic. I’ve been very good to you, too, Pharma. I want you to remember that.” She stood up, dusted the snow off her legs. Pharma didn’t breathe. She stepped over the doctor, leaned down, gently picked up the biohazard bag with the t-cox in it by the corner. Then the sound of humming, rich with vibrato, and then the sound of boots crunching in snow, casual and getting fainter. Then nothing but the distant hum of the highway and the buzz of the lights far away on the street outside the cemetery.

And Pharma lay there against the gravestone, curled up on her side with her hands tucked in the front flap of her jacket. Too shocked to cry, still, too afraid to do anything but lay there in the snow, looking for all the world like a corpse left in the graveyard.


End file.
